TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said on Saturday that Iran and Ukraine are investigating the black box of the Ukrainian plane which unintentionally downed on January 8.

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He said Iran was willing to pass on to Kyiv the data and voice recorders from the flight after they had been examined by a joint investigation team comprising experts from Iran, Canada, and Ukraine, according to Reuters.

The Kyiv-bound Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737, crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran last Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board, mostly Iranian and Canadian citizens.

Iran admitted it has shot down the plane “unintentionally” while on high alert after firing missiles at US bases in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad.

The Ukrainian foreign minister said Iran was ready to hand over the black box flight recorders of the Ukrainian passenger plane.

He said Iran would grant a team of investigators from Iran and Canada as the countries that have lost the most nationals access to the recorders.

“After that, the Iranian side is ready to separately transfer the black boxes to Ukraine,” Vadym Prystaiko said.

“This is consistent with international standards, although we still demand that they are given to us immediately to ensure the independence and objectivity of the investigation,” Prystaiko said.

Prystaiko told CNN on Wednesday that Kyiv has “good cooperation” with Iran on the plane crash probe, but lacked “access to the information stored in the black boxes.”

In a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, Prystaiko expressed his gratitude to Iran for close cooperation in investigations into the tragedy.

Zarif voiced Iran’s readiness to transfer the bodies of the Ukrainian victims of the incident and to involve experts from the country in the black box investigations.

The Iran’s foreign minister also held a meeting with his Canadian counterpart Francois-Philippe Champagnein Oman on Friday.

Both officials discussed consular, technical and legal cooperation between Iran and the countries that their nationals lost their lives in the plane tragedy.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Friday that the bodies of all Ukrainians who died in last week’s plane crash have been identified and will be transported back to Ukraine on Jan. 19.

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“For our people it is very important in this incident that anyone who was at fault or negligent at any level” face justice, said Rouhani in a televised speech, adding that the “tragic event” would be thoroughly investigated.

He described the fatal incident “a painful and unforgivable” mistake and promised that his government would pursue the case “by all means.”

“More than just one person is responsible for the Ukrainian plane crash,” said the president, adding that those found culpable “should be punished.”

“There are others, too, and I want this issue to be expressed honestly,” he said, without elaborating.

Rouhani also called for a special court to probe the tragic incident.

“The Judiciary must form a special court with a high-ranking judge and dozens of experts…This is not an ordinary case. The entire world will be watching this court.”

Arrests in airliner case

Meanwhile, Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said: “extensive investigations have taken place and some individuals are arrested.” He did not say how many individuals had been detained or named.

The Ukraine International Airlines plane crashed after it was “unintentionally” targeted by Iranian air defense shortly after takeoff from Tehran last Wednesday, killing all passengers and crew on board.

On Saturday, Iran’s military said that the jetliner was brought down due to “human error”.

The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 176 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians — including many Iranians with dual citizenship — and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials.

The plane was downed at a time when Iran’s Armed Forces were on heightened alert after launching a volley of missiles at Iraqi bases housing US troops.

Iran fired the missiles in retaliation for the US assassination of Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on January 3.

Addressing that issue on Tuesday, Rouhani said while “the root of all sorrows goes back to America… this cannot be a reason for us not to look into all the root causes” of the air disaster.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – President Hassan Rouhani called on the Judiciary to make every effort to hold a special court and accelerate the investigation process of a Ukrainian passenger plane incident in which the carrier was ‘unintentionally downed’ near Tehran last week.

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A Ukraine International Airlines jetliner crashes a few minutes after take-off from Tehran to Kyiv early Wednesday, killing all 176 crew members and passengers.

In their initial reactions to the incident, Iranian officials attributed the crash to technical failure and dismissed the possibility of the plane having been shot down by missiles.

However, after conducting thorough investigations, Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces released a statement on Saturday, acknowledging that the Ukrainian plane had been brought down by missiles fired “unintentionally” due to “human error.”

The discrepancy between the initial accounts and the subsequent investigations gave rise to a wave of public anger, with some accusing government officials of seeking to cover up the truth.

Speaking at a press conference in Tehran on Monday, Ali Rabiei, the administration’s spokesman, said, “As a matter of fact, we did not lie. Lying means conscious and deliberate falsification of the truth. Such a thing never took place.”

Elaborating on his own statements on Thursday during which he ruled out any likelihood that the aircraft had been downed by a missile, Rabiei said those remarks were made “based on information available to the administration at the time, which rejected the role of any missile” as the cause of the crash.

None of the administration officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, were aware of the cause of the plane crash until Friday evening when the administration was provided with the findings of an investigation by General Staff of the Armed Forces, he explained.

Head of the Aerospace Division of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, explained that the operator in charge had identified what his air defense system had detected as an incoming cruise missile. He then “took the wrong decision” in a “ten-second” time span after a failure in the communication network prevented him from obtaining permission for the launch.

The Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces were on the highest level of alert at the time of the incident after President Donald Trump had threatened to strike 52 targets inside Iran, if the country attempted to avenge the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, in Baghdad.

Rabiei said as soon as Iran President Rouhani ascertained what had caused the plane crash, he ordered that, away from misinformation, the public be informed accordingly.

He also commended the General Staff of the Armed Forces’ statement as an “honest and responsible” admission of liability for the incident. “This is a good start,” he said, expressing confidence that the incident will continue to be addressed in a transparent way until all matters are resolved.

Rabiei also said Iran needed to take all technical precautions to “reduce the likelihood of human errors to zero.”

The spokesman, meanwhile, drew attention to the “root cause” of the tragedy, namely “the US regime’s cowardly assassination of General Soleimani that raised the specter of war over our country and [thus] imposed heavy psychological pressure on our society.”

He also noted that “the incidence of a single error” should not call into question all the sacrifices and endeavors exerted by the country’s defense forces.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Spokesperson for Parliament Presiding Board Asadollah Abbasi revealed the start of closed session of the Parliament in the presence of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC Chief Major General Hossein Salami.

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“Our focus remains closure, accountability, transparency, and justice for the families and loved ones of the victims. This is a national tragedy, and all Canadians are mourning together,” Trudeau said in a statement on Saturday.

“We will continue working with our partners around the world to ensure a complete and thorough investigation, and the government of Canada expects full cooperation from authorities in Iran,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says.

The General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces announced on Saturday that the country’s air defense unintentionally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane on January 8 amid the highest level of readiness because of a possible military attack by the US.

All 179 people on board the Boeing 737, including nine crew, were killed when the jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff from the airport on Wednesday morning.

The victims of Wednesday’s crash included 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, and three British nationals.

The plane operated by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) was bound for Kyiv.

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The passenger plane, with 179 people aboard, was mistakenly downed on Wednesday morning. It happened a few hours after Iran fired dozens of missiles at the U.S. airbase inside Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3.

Hajizadeh said he was in western Iran when the incident happened.

“I will accept all the responsibilities for this incident,” the chief of the IRGC Aerospace Force told in a press conference.

He added, “We will obey any decision by officials.”

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Speaking at a televised briefing in Kyiv on Friday, Prystaiko added that Ukraine sees “full cooperation” from Iran in the probe of the plane crash cause.

“Our team has now got access to the black boxes,” he said, adding that Ukrainian experts have also obtained access to the plane’s debris and the crash site.

Kyiv has sent a team of nearly 50 experts to Iran to participate in the probe after Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 went down near Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.

Despite claims by Canada, Britain, the United States and some other countries with a stake in the crisis-hit Boeing company that the plane was hit by an Iranian missile, probably by mistake, Prystaiko said Ukraine does not want to come to conclusions yet about the cause of the disaster.

The Ukrainian foreign minister said the issue of where the black boxes would be analyzed was still a matter of discussion, but noted that his country wants this to take place in Kyiv.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Thursday, Head of Iran Civil Aviation Organization Ali Abedzadeh dismissed as “illogical rumors” reports that the Ukrainian plane was brought down by missiles.

“From a scientific viewpoint, it is impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane,” he said, adding, “The plane caught fire three minutes into the flight, according to what the witnesses have reported and the data collected from the parts of the airplane.”

Iran’s top aviation official also addressed a press conference on Friday and said the results of a probe into the passenger plane crash will show what has happened, but Iran is certain no missile hit the aircraft.

“However, we can state it with certainty that no missile has hit this airplane. The plane was flying for over 1.5 minutes while it was on fire, and the crash site shows the pilot had decided to return [to the airport],” Abedzadeh said.

The Ukrainian foreign minister further told the briefing that he could not confirm evidence of bulldozers being at the site, adding there were various scenarios.

“We do not reject any of the versions. We want to establish the truth,” Prystaiko said.

“At the moment, we have no reason to say that the Iranian authorities are not coordinating their activities or are not sufficiently interacting with Ukraine,” he pointed out.

He noted that the plane had changed course after an incident but it was hard to comment about the reason.

Prystaiko said Ukrainian flights to Iran and Iraq were banned until the investigations are concluded.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council also on Friday confirmed that Ukrainian investigators had access to the crash site of the crash and that they were happy with cooperation from the Iranian side.

Oleksiy Danilov told Swedish broadcaster TV4 that Ukraine had 45 people working in Iran and that they were currently pursuing seven different lines of investigation with no “priority version.”

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“Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably, missiles fired from Iran, due to human error caused the horrific crash and downing of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people. Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake,” Rouhani said in a tweet on Saturday.

In a follow-up tweet, he added, “The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake. My thoughts and prayers go to all the mourning families. I offer my sincerest condolences”.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran said in a statement earlier in the day that the country’s military “unintentionally” shot down the passenger jet after it flew close to a sensitive site.

Those responsible would be held accountable, the statement said.

The victims of Wednesday’s crash included 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, and three British nationals.

All 179 people on board the Boeing 737, including nine crew, were killed when the jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff from the airport on Wednesday morning.

The plane operated by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) was bound for Kyiv.

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